


Where Were You?

by jujubiest



Series: Gotham [2]
Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-29
Updated: 2015-12-29
Packaged: 2018-05-10 04:43:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5571582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jujubiest/pseuds/jujubiest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Captain Nathaniel Barnes may have showed up just in time for Gotham, but it's too little, too late for Jim Gordon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where Were You?

Captain Nathaniel Barnes is everything Jim Gordon could have wanted in a leader. He’s a true, stalwart upholder of the letter of the law, a real no-nonsense hardliner. And Jim wants to scream in his face every time he looks at the man, has to clench his jaw to keep the words from pouring out without his permission.

 _Where were you a year ago?_ He thinks despondently. _Where were you when my hands were clean and I still believed good men doing the right thing could fix a broken city? Where were you when I could have stood beside you with pride?_

He feels it, eating him from the inside out. Not guilt, nothing so pure as that. Guilt would have been a relief, a sign he’s not as far gone as he thinks. But no…he lives in the grim certainty that he only did what he had to do, what needed to be done. But he lives in fear that Captain Barnes, a better man than him by far, will find out just how many lines he’s crossed, and give him what the letter of the law demands.

He could confess, of course, and hope for leniency. But he feels it in him, the automatic recoil, the criminal’s determination not to be caught. It makes him sick, but he swallows it down with difficulty and smiles, nods along as Captain Barnes dispenses cases and orders like a general. He bows and scrapes before his new master just as Penguin did before Fish Mooney, Sal Maroni, Carmine Falcone…and the fact that his master is a good man doesn’t change the fact that he feels like a wet-nosed little weasel himself.

Maybe it’s the wet-nosed weasels of the world that survive to get things done. Whether it’s true or not, Jim knows the fact that he even thinks it is just another indication that he’s tarnished beyond salvage. He should throw his badge and his gun on the captain’s desk right now.

He tucks both into their places beneath his jacket and heads out into the city, to do his work if not his job.


End file.
